


Ruination

by potterswinchesters



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Bisexual Dean Winchester, Castiel Whump, Emotional Manipulation, Heavy Angst, Hurt Castiel, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Michael!Dean, Not A Fix-It, Post-Season/Series 13 Finale, Repressed Dean Winchester, castiel dies thinking his love is unreciprocated
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-02
Updated: 2018-08-02
Packaged: 2019-06-20 11:17:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15533055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/potterswinchesters/pseuds/potterswinchesters
Summary: It’s Michael whose mouth is twisted into an ugly sneer directed at Castiel, Michael whose fists are red with his blood—but he’s wearing Dean’s body and speaking in Dean’s voice, and that alone is tearing Cas apart from the inside out.





	Ruination

“You can’t save him.”

Castiel forces his gaze upwards. He’s on his knees before Dean and he can taste the molecules of his vessel’s blood—

No. Not Dean. _Michael._ It’s Michael, he has to keep reminding himself.

It’s Michael saying these words. It’s Michael whose mouth is twisted into an ugly sneer directed at Castiel, Michael whose fists are red with his blood—but he’s wearing Dean’s body and speaking in Dean’s voice, and that alone is tearing Cas apart from the inside out. He can’t bring himself to hate Michael, no matter how much he wants to—not like this.

He knows he can’t save Dean, but he would never forgive himself if he didn’t try.

_I prayed to you, Cas. Every night!_

The skies are thundering and rain is pouring down on them; but over the roar of the storm, Michael’s voice rings loud and clear.

“Oh, _Castiel_ ,” he drawls, feigning sympathy, “poor, helpless, _stupid_ Castiel,” and he punches him again, and Cas is certain that his name has never sounded like that before, not in Dean’s mouth.

Dean had uttered Castiel’s name like it was something precious, something to be revered. Every time he spoke Castiel’s name—even in moments of anger—his longing always seemed to bleed through the cracks in his resolve.

The hard planes of his face would soften. The roughness of his tone would falter. The tumult of his soul would calm.

But not now.

Now, it is unrecognizable. Full of contempt and mockery.

_I’d rather have you. Cursed or not._

When the archangel grabs Castiel’s tie and hauls him forward, he simply goes with the motion, refusing to fight against his brother when he knows Dean is in there somewhere. A pair of green eyes search his, but they look all wrong. Cas understands immediately that it’s because Michael’s disdain towards him is causing Dean’s pupils to contract.

Still, he looks beautiful in a deceptive way, for Castiel has loved this body for so long. From the moment he put it back together after rescuing Dean’s soul from Hell, he’s loved it intimately.

_I’m not leaving here without you._

Raindrops catch on Michael’s—on _Dean’s_ —eyelashes and trickle down his freckled face.

Beautiful.

But frigid. Like a sculpture of ice and stone. Powerful. Unfeeling. Wrong. Not Dean. _Not Dean._

His eyes aren’t the only part that’s different. Looking more closely—more _fully_ —at him, Castiel now realizes that. Dean’s vibrancy isn’t there to tinge his cheeks pink, so they’re paler than they usually are. His stance is more confident; he’s standing so stiffly that his bow legs are no longer prominent.

“You know he’s screaming in here?” Michael tells Cas, his rough voice making Castiel’s heart pound and ears ring. He laughs mirthlessly to himself. “Of all the things I’ve done with his hands, it’s ludicrous to think that _this_ is what causes him the most grief! To think that this sorry excuse for a human is the Righteous Man when he doesn’t care about humanity. Not really. He cares only for his own.” Michael pauses, smile widening. “He doesn’t want me to hurt you, Castiel, and as I tear you apart with his hands, so will he be torn.”

_It’s a gift. You keep those._

“No,” Castiel says, wide eyes seeking Michael’s, hoping to get through to Dean. And it’s not because he doesn’t want to die—he doesn’t care for himself in the least—but rather because he knows that the Dean Winchester he knows will consider himself at fault. “Dean,” he gasps, desperate, clutching at Michael’s arm, “listen to me: it’s not your fault. Please don’t blame yourself. Please please don’t—”

Michael lets out another booming laugh and seizes Castiel’s chin roughly until he is nearly crushing his jawbone beneath his fingertips. “Listen to yourself. You are an abomination, Castiel. Pathetic. _Weak._ And so is the Winchester.”

_Don’t ever change._

“You’re wrong,” Castiel spits through gritted teeth. He grapples desperately for words that he knows will be heard by Dean. “Dean may only be human, but he’s stronger than you’ll ever be. He was the one who killed Lucifer, not you. _He_ was in control, he needed you only to wield the blade. Without him, you were nothing. You were _broken_. But trust me, the Winchesters and I have faced much greater threats than you and we have always won, and we—we will—”

“You’re talking too much, brother, but are not truly saying anything,” Michael snarls. “To think that you, some low-ranking angel, weakened by human influence and emotions, would be enough to defeat me—well, that’s simply absurd. Empty threats.” To prove his point, he breaks the bone in Castiel’s arm with a flick of his wrist, and Cas screams out in pain. “You’re already dead, Castiel, so why don’t we have a little more fun now? Would you like to know how I tortured him? How I have been bringing pain, day after day, to the love of your life?”

Castiel can feel his grace beginning to mend his broken arm. He shakes with anger at the thought of what Michael has been doing to Dean all this time.

_But you’re always there, you know?_

“Sometimes it’s with hallucinations of his brother’s death,” says Michael, “sometimes his mother’s, sometimes yours… Sometimes I make him relive his time in Hell, before his _sweet guardian angel_ came to rescue him… But what I found to be the most delicious and effective torture was… using his own shame and self-hatred against him.”

Michael’s smile is growing wider and wider by the second, and Castiel knows where this is going… He doesn’t want to hear it, doesn’t think he can bear to—

“And do you want to know the thing he is most ashamed of, in all the pathetic years of his life?” the archangel ploughs on. There’s an undercurrent of smugness in his tone when he delivers the final blow: “It is you, Castiel. His love for you. His lust. Oh, how he hates himself for it!” There’s a pause, a slight hesitation, in which Michael appears to mull over what he has just said. “No—how _disgusted_ he is with himself for it.”

“ _Dean_ ,” Cas tries again, unwavering. His heart is sinking through the ground. There are tears brimming his eyes and he can’t remember the last time he cried like this, but he thinks it was probably the night Metatron killed Dean, years ago. “Dean, I don’t care—what he’s saying, I don’t care. I never expected anything from you but friendship, you have nothing to be ashamed of, I…”

He’s lying, because it hurts so much. It hurts right down to his core to find out what he already knew: that Dean hates himself for loving someone as horrible as Castiel.

_Don’t get dead again._

“So now that you know how he truly feels, I will kill you with your human’s hands; and after I do, I’ll make new angels. Obedient ones. Ones who don’t fall in love with human scum and bend at their will, as you do.”

“Dean, it’s okay. I know it’s not you. Please don’t blame yourself. There’s nothing you can do,” Cas chokes out. Now he’s grasping at straws—hoping that Dean might overpower the most powerful angel in existence—and he knows it. Nevertheless, the words roll off his tongue like a benediction. “Dean, _I love you_. It’s not your fault. I love you.”

Michael leans down to bury his fingers in Castiel’s hair. “Disgrace,” he mutters under his breath. Then, louder, he adds, “Lucifer had it right, you know.” He tips Castiel’s head back roughly, exposing his neck. “Never thought I’d say that, but he was right to consume angels’ grace. Why let the grace die with the angel? Why let it go to waste?”

The archangel blade kisses Castiel’s throat, just as Dean should have. He’s forced to watch his grace being sucked from his vessel to Dean’s lips. As he is drained of essence, his broken bone stops healing and his agony is magnified tenfold, thirtyfold, a hundredfold.

_I need you._

He doesn’t have enough time to fully savour the pain.

When Michael plunges the blade through his heart, Castiel makes sure that the last things he sees are Dean’s eyes.

* * *

He dies believing that he wasn’t enough.

He dies thinking that if it were Sam instead of him, Dean would’ve broken through Michael’s hold.

He dies not understanding that Dean loves them differently. For his brother, Dean is action. For his angel, he is ruination.

In every way that matters, Dean Winchester dies before Castiel does. He dies the moment Cas’s blood first stains his hands red.


End file.
